cost differential of games Steam vs Amazon

[Darkkhelmet]

I was looking at Fallout 4 for $59.95 on Steam. I also noticed it for $39.95 from Amazon. Does anyone know what, if any, the differences between them are?

[tmwfte]

Physical vs. digital most likely. I get a "currently unavailable" when I look at the PC download code.

[Chompman]

Fallout 4 has been on sale for about that price a few times now so just wait till the next sale. :P

[Satoru]

The phyisical copies of Fallout 4 are sold by 3rd party resellerse

You see unlike digital copies, physical copies COST you money for every nano second they exist in your inventory. From depreciation costs, to just the cost of holding it in your warehouse, every second that ticks away means you're spending more moeny on it. Which is why after release physical copies go on a fire sale. Retailers do not what this stuff on their shelves. Its costing money and opportunity cost of having something else that would sell instead.

Digital copies have no such problem. Whether I need 5 copies or 5 million, it takes up the same amount of space. Zero. There's no distribution or manufacturing cost I need to make up for. No depreciation cost I need to get rid of. If my game is selling well, like Fallout 4 is, I have no need to fire sale it. People will buy it from Steam at full price as evidenced by the fact that Fallout 4 and its Season's Pass are currently in the top 20 of Steam revenue.

The reduction of price on the physical distribution side is an INVENTORY CONTROL problem.

Digital distribution doesn't have that problem and thus the price of the game can more accurately reflect the demand on it. Which is why CoD games almost never go on sale. Which is why ARMA2 was 75% all the time, up until the DayZ mod at which point the next sale was 33% off. They were able to change the sale price and the price of the game to more accurately reflect teh demand on the game. Something that would be impossible in retail.

[Darkkhelmet]

So, from what I am seeing here there is no real difference except one is a physical copy and one is digital. Thanks for the info.

[Lostedge]

Steam thinks that they have a monopoly and that they dont have to have sales anymore. Hence games are cheaper in anywhere else.

[Seretti]

Originally posted by Lostedge:

Steam thinks that they have a monopoly and that they dont have to have sales anymore. Hence games are cheaper in anywhere else.

Steam is a client and cannot think anything. Publishers set the prices on Steam. Besides, there's sales happening all the time, every day of the week.

[Merzbow]

Originally posted by Lostedge:

Steam thinks that they have a monopoly and that they dont have to have sales anymore. Hence games are cheaper in anywhere else.

You mean Valve, right? They created Steam, Steam isn't its own thing. Also, they have many sales, there's almost always a game on sale. The fact that it's not the one game you waneed out of the 10,000+ games on Steam isn't their problem.

[fluxtorrent]

Even if he meant Valve he's still wrong, sales are up to the publisher/developers of the title and they have sole decision making on what the titles price is at any time.

[Merzbow]

Originally posted by fluxtorrent:

Even if he meant Valve he's still wrong, sales are up to the publisher/developers of the title and they have sole decision making on what the titles price is at any time.

That as well. Have no clue why people seem to blame Valve for not putting a game they wanted on sale, on sale, or not having such a good discount on the game they wanted. The one time people blamed the publishers/devs was the GTA V incident during the last summer sale where Rockstar bundled a shark card with the game to get away with selling GTA V for $60

[Tux]

well at least speaking for myself around 95% of the games I am looking for Amazon doesnt have anyway